Nevermore
by Night Rain Illusion
Summary: Quoth the raven, "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming, and the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor..." Warnings for mild gore, insanity, character death, etc. Raven!Mytho/Fakir if you squint hard enough


A Princess Tutu fic! Yay! And it's Raven!Mytho/Fakir! Double yay! And it's twisted as fuck and makes no sense at all! Triple yay! It's pretty much AU though, obviously, and I probably ruined a decent characterization of this show since I'm unexperienced writing for this fandom. I have no idea what I was thinking when I was writing it, but I guess I was attempting to compare the struggles of trying to find an ending that doesn't end as badly as this one did. I don't own Princess Tutu. Probably a good thing too otherwise I might of butchered the series ending with my personal need for tragedy. (I actually sympathize with that miserable old man since I happen to like tragic stories too) May possibly be switched to M.

**Nevermore  
**_Quoth the Raven_

1. She stole my heart...

When he had been younger, he had declared that he would marry the prince when he was older, so that nothing could ever come between the two of them. He didn't care how silly that sounded, but it was the truth because the prince was his and his alone.

But then Rue came into their life and it went to hell because everyone knows the prince takes the princess, not the knight at the end of the story, and even with his possessive guard over him and control of what he said and did wasn't enough to keep him away from her. Even, perhaps, the nights he spends simply observing the prince, and he wonders what it would be like if the prince really was his to have, was really just that. Thoughts.

_There is a world he dreams of where it's just him and the prince and everyone else could rot for all he cared because he could care less about other people's happiness._

[He's sitting in class one day and as he looks around, he notices for the first time that there are three empty spots where people should be sitting, but aren't.]

2. ...And broke it.

The years had passed and things got worse.

The prince wasn't his anymore, maybe never was, but couldn't be now, not with the feathers decorating his body and the blood-color of his eyes, even when the prince likes to remind him of how this could of all been avoided if he had done his job right, how he should of protected him as his knight, throwing everything out of sync and into a slowly decaying sense of who was the one really in control here.

_/And little by little he slowly breaks without realizing it, even when he's keeping up his facade as the prince vaguely muses aloud about what it is he feels towards him and is too close and-/_

He thinks about it sometimes, if he could kill her, the one responsible, would things go back to normal?

/_"You know, Fakir, I seem to recall you once stating that you would marry me when you were older. I can't help but wonder if you still feel that way..."/_

It would be easy, surely, if he had a chance to wrap his hands around her neck or wings that would probably snap like twigs and ensure that the raven princess could never fly again.

But he doesn't, because the girl that reminds him of a duck who can turn into a princess that reminds him of a swan wouldn't want him to become the very thing that he's trying to defeat. And strangely this is the only thing that stops him from turning into a monster just like the one that's claimed the prince.

/_"Why not give me your heart?" the prince asks conversationally, and maybe a long long time ago he would of said yes in a heartbeat without any regrets but it's too late for that now and would definitely regret it if he did, regret it worse than the regret he feels right now for letting the prince getting under his skin like this in ways more than one._/

So instead, he sits next to the duck-girl and tries to think positively enough that surely they'll find a way to change the prince back to normal, and maybe he even feels _something_ for the duck-girl that reminds him of the feeling he had when he had first declared that he would marry the prince when he was older.

[Even if it meant an ending where no one was really happy, but they would all pretend to be because it was the best they could hope for.]

_Every now and then he dreams of an ending where he's sitting by a lake with a duck and wondering if the prince and his princess are happy wherever they are and trying to come up with a way to give himself and the duck a happy ending as well._

[But mostly he wonders whatever happened to that bastard raven and if he disappeared along with the princesses and the storyteller that had already abandoned the useless knight]

3. So I took hers...

"Why not come closer? I promise I won't bite."

"You know, you're the only person that's actually come to see me since my being here. Well...other than _him _anyway. Drosselmeyer. He didn't say much really. Mostly laughed. Said that this was an ending he had never expected. Thanked me for keeping him on the edge of his toes and for making things so...entertaining...I haven't heard from him since. I guess he believes the story is over now."

"In a way, if you think about it, he's like God. He controls our existences and can do anything he wants on a whim. But...Well, I think he soon became afraid of his own creations. He never did like to get his hands dirty and tried to stay as far in the background as possible."

"Tell me, do you think God stays in heaven because he fears the things he creates?"

_"...Your heart is beating just like it did that day."_

"Tell me, Fakir, why did you _really_ come here?"

[He wants to ask why the prince is a shadow, why he's in prison of all places and no longer loved by anyone except maybe him who loves who he used to be, and more importantly of all, why he did what he did and why the raven princess and the swan princess no longer exist anymore because of what he did]

_"Fakir, you remember how the story ended, don't you? How it really ended? I wonder, did anyone actually live at the end?"_

"I wonder...did Ahiru-chan and Rue-san ever show up for school? Or does everyone think they're still missing?"

_"I wonder, I wonder, where did they go? Well Fakir, where did they go? I know you know since you were there, weren't you, weren't you?"_

[He attends, of course, and as he watches from the back, the shadow looks in his direction, and for a second he sees the prince, the one he chooses to remember, smile apologetically and before Fakir has the chance to wonder if he really saw it, the floor drops under him and he falls falls falls and the smile is still there long after the noose has done it's job]

_"Fakir's guilty! Fakir's the guilty one! If it wasn't for you, none of this would of happened!"_

_Sometimes he dreams of a world where the duck-girl did live happily ever after with the prince as his princess and that Tutu never did disappear in a flash of light and Rue finally found someone that loved her just as much as the prince had, if not more so, and where he was just happy enough for everyone else's happiness. _

"Fakir? Are you seeing things? Are you imagining things that aren't really there? Tell us, Fakir, what are you seeing?"

_"Sure, they're dead and gone, but that doesn't mean those of us left didn't die on the inside, you know."_

[Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he could write an ending that would save everyone]

_"Fakir, do you remember what color the shoes and feathers had been?"_

4. ...And ate it! Crunch! AHAHAHAHA!

It's a horrifying scene, blood everywhere in pools and splashed against the walls. Black feathers float on its surface, like a great bird has molted and there's a sickening splash as he is forced to step through it to get to the source. The remains of a person are there, that much is true, but its almost as if this person has been utterly ripped to shreds, nothing left but bones and entrails on the ground.

And a pair of black ballet shoes.

["It was all necessary", the prince turned shadow is heard saying later with red-dyed lips and a laugh, "because they loved me and gladly gave up their hearts for me, you should of heard them Fakir, you should of heard the happiness in their voices...!"]

_There is a dream where he lives in a world where the raven wins and the prince is nothing more than a shadow that has dyed its mouth with the blood of the dark and white princesses and everyone dies horrible horrible deaths and the story spinner gets the tragic ending he desired. This dream doesn't last long though. _

_Except one day, he doesn't wake up and suddenly the prince really is nothing more than a shadow and is being dragged away to be held in a prison cell until his execution and the ravens are laughing and Princess Tutu isn't coming to save the day and the story is all but ended and Ahiru's just a duck or maybe she would of been again if the shoes had been black instead of pink and he can't help but notice that even though he defied his fate of being torn to pieces by ravens, it's a cruel irony to realize that he's the only one that actually lived at the end and that they're all dead and gone and he's alone in the end, the complete opposite of how it should of ended and everything will never be the same ever again and nothing anyone ever says will ever change that. _

Each time he wakes up, he doesn't know which world was real and which one was just a dream and what world he's currently in now, only hoping that next time he won't be able to recall if the feathers had been yellow instead of black or the metallic taste in his mouth from where the prince turned raven turned shadow had exclaimed, _"I want to hear the happiness in your voice too, Fakir!"_

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting  
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;  
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,  
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;  
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor  
Shall be lifted - nevermore!  
_-Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven";Final Verse-_


End file.
